BMW Group says ideas from employees at the Oxford MINI assembly plant have saved £10.5 million in the past two years implementing BMW's Continuous Improvement Process.

Every employee at the plant is set a target of implementing three ideas a year to improve the business. 11,064 ideas were put into practice from a total of 14,333 submitted in 2003, an 80% implementation rate. Suggestions ranged from saving unnecessary paper to the development of a new overhead assister to enable equipment to be fed through the MINI bodyshell as it moves through the paint shop.

A 'Working in Groups' initiative has set up over 200 teams of eight to 15 people. The production line is stopped for 90 minutes every month for ideas meetings.

Savings of over £43 million were achieved in 2003 from similar CIP schemes throughout BMW Group's global production network of 24 production plants located in 15 different countries.